Apple's much-anticipated tablet device coming early next year — Exclusive: After four years of meticulous developmental riddled with setbacks, Apple is now racing toward an early 2010 launch of a device that may see the electronics maker redefine the portable computing market for the second time in twice as many years.

How Palm Re-Enabled iTunes Sync (The Plot Thickens) — So the big question: How did Palm re-enable iTunes sync? The answer, so far as we an tell, is to go even deeper in their efforts to make the Pre look like an iPod. I just plugged my 1.1 Pre into my Mac in Media Sync mode and sure enough …

Microsoft Changes ‘Laptop Hunters’ Ad After Apple Complains — New Version Reflects Lowered Price on Mac Notebook — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Following a complaint from Apple, Microsoft has quietly tweaked at least one of the ads in its “Laptop Hunters” campaign to reflect its rival's lower pricing on its Mac notebooks.

How (and why) to replace the AP — The Associated Press is becoming the enemy of the internet because it is fighting the link and the link is the basis of the internet. From Richard Perez-Pena's New York Times story today: … Them's fightin' words: quoting an article's headline while linking to it would require licensing?

Is AP Run By Idiots? — Sometimes you see a business move so stupid, so clearly self-damaging that you have to wonder whether someone inside the corporation is trying to torpedo it. And that's exactly what is happening at the Associated Press, as it gears up to wage war on every single web site …

Sprint CEO: We're glad we waited on Android — PASADENA, Calif.—Sprint CEO Dan Hesse talked a lot about the mobile operating system he held off on—Android—and not so much about the phone he has backed, Palm's Pre. — Hesse said Friday here at Fortune's Brainstorm …

The Pushbutton Web: Realtime Becomes Real — Pushbutton is a name for what I believe will be an upgrade for the web, where any site or application can deliver realtime messages to a web-scale audience, using free and open technologies at low cost and without relying on any single company like Twitter or Facebook.

Bill Gates: My 1979 Memories — Our Gizmodo '79 celebration may have ended last week, but there's room for a final post, written by famed retiree and mosquito wrangler Bill Gates. It's no joke: Gates read the series then sent this in: — I read those 1979 stories all last week …

Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds — It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors' orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices. — It is called high-frequency trading …

Gates Faults U.S. on Data Privacy and Immigration — NEW DELHI, India — In a far-ranging speech Friday, Bill Gates criticized the American government's policy on immigration and data privacy, predicted giant leaps in technology in the near future and explained why he had to shut down his Facebook page.

Samsung Confirms It's Working on NVIDIA Tegra Phone — A Samsung representative today confirmed that Samsung is working with NVIDIA's Tegra processor in an upcoming device. — Unfamiliar with Tegra? Imagine taking your smart phone and plugging it into your 42-inch HD TV at home and watching …

Benchmark Is Optimistic About IPOs — Silicon Valley venture capitalists-who invest in startups with the aim of profiting later when those companies go public or are sold-have found it tough to produce returns recently. Not only have the markets been largely devoid of public offerings and M …

Ex-Facebookers could lose out on stock sale — Facebook shareholders got the long-awaited gift of liquidity last week when Russia's Digital Sky Technologies began buying up to $100 million of Facebook common stock from current and former employees. — The latter group however …

SearchMe May Go Offline Tomorrow (Updated: Offline Now) — An Update to our post yesterday about Sequoia-funded search startup SearchMe. The company needs a new round of financing or a quick acquisition to stay online, but so far neither are happening. CEO Randy Adams wrote to me this morning with an update on where things stand.

HTC Hero review — The HTC Hero has been an object of lust for some time now for gadget enthusiasts. Even from the earliest days of leaked hardware shots and blurry demo videos of its UI, smartphone fans seemed to agree that the company had finally achieved what has been missing in the world of Android.

Ashton Kutcher: Twitter will change media — PASADENA, Calif.—Ashton Kutcher said that the fact he beat CNN to a million Twitter followers is a significant deal. — Kutcher, known to his nearly three million followers as “aplusk,” said that it shows that one individual can have the power …

Nokia to acquire cellity — Espoo, Finland - Hamburg, Germany - Nokia and cellity today announced an agreement for Nokia to acquire certain assets of cellity. cellity is a privately owned mobile software company which employs 14 people in Hamburg, Germany. — Nokia will acquire the cellity team …

Skype singled out as threat to Russia's security — MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's most powerful business lobby moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security.

Location extensions, a new way to run local ads — Today, we'd like to tell you about a new way to run your local ads - location extensions. Location extensions allow you to “extend” your AdWords campaigns by dynamically attaching your business address to your ads.